Simple, Selfish
by Remy2
Summary: Post-Fool for Love. Buffy and Spike patrol; Spike reflects. First fic I ever wrote.


TITLE: Simple, Selfish  
AUTHOR: Remy (remytakesthestage@hotmail.com)  
RATING: PG-13, for a bit of language and suicide-y angst. Tons o' fun, I'm tellin' ya...  
FEEDBACK: Always appreciated, never underestimated. :)  
SUMMARY: Hmmm...basically a bit of dwelling on Spike's behalf as him and Buffy patrol.   
AUTHOR'S NOTES: In a nutshell: the by-product of too many cups of soda, RemyZero's "Gramarye" on repeat, and a clock that says '3:00' (AM). It's kind of weird...no *real* plot. Basically just angsty/odd ramblings that B/S writers are oh-so-good at. g  
  
  
Simple, Selfish  
  
"Never would've loved you; Should've left this town." -Cold, "Same Drug"  
  
  
  
She had asked him once, when they were bored and perhaps even lonely; she said: "Why don't you ever call me 'Buffy'?"  
  
And he smiled at her, with that evil, cocky grin that he would usually procure during the pinnacle of a battle won - and probably during great sex, too, she figured... Not that she was accustomed to thinking about sex and Spike at the same time. Usually.   
  
He drank in her words and, upon doing so, realized he didn't really know the answer, so he worked to make something up. He wanted to surprise her with something smart, dark, deep perhaps, so he made sure to look through her and let his eyes glaze a little, pretend to be deep in thought, so she would believe he was being sincere or that she had persuaded him to walk on untreaded territory, because demons were anything but sincere. He looked at her, then, and replied in a whisper, "Angels don't have names."   
  
He smiled again - this time, not quite forced, but rather out of habit; she didn't appear convinced.   
  
Perhaps angels *did* have names and he wasn't as poetic as he thought.   
  
Then: "Why do you ask so many bleedin' questions?" Because she *did* ask too many questions, and it was silly, since she already knew most of the answers. She ignored him and he continued: "Curiosity killed the cat, y'know." She shook her head in difference. Oh, yeah: *She* killed the cat.  
  
"You should learn to play an instrument," she said. He gave her a funny look and her eyes replied, 'Just trying to make conversation.' "Like the drums...or a guitar. I always pictured you with a guitar."   
  
"How 'bout the triangle?" he teased, and they chuckled quietly over the joke that only they and her mother could understand. He smiled, this time *at her*; it was genuine, not fake or born out of inclination, and Buffy figured it could even be considered beautiful in another town.   
  
Then, as though not to create a stir, or ruffle even a fallen leaf, he hissed, "I play the piano."   
  
She was surprised, for less than a second - for this *was* Spike, after all; the personification of contradiction, itself - but she shook it off and asked out of pure curiosity: "Are you any good?"   
  
"I'm *plenty* good, luv," he cooed, the wide grin that he held oh-so-well stretching across his pale face, showing rarely-displayed teeth that accented his jagged cheekbones, like he knew they would...and he swore he saw her blush. "The piano isn't something you're 'good' at or 'bad' at. If you can play a few lines of Beethoven, you can *be* Beethoven. And if you can't play a few lines of Beethoven, then you don't play the piano." He took a drag of his newly-lit cigarette.   
  
"Well, you should get a piano, then, Spike. A person should have a hobby. Hobbies are healthy."   
  
"I used to have a hobby. I used to kill people."   
  
She couldn't tell if he was doing it on purpose, if he was trying to pique at her by saying barbarous things. Maybe he wanted to fight. Or maybe he *wasn't* doing it on purpose; maybe he was just being his usual strange-self and maybe she just forgot who she was talking to.   
  
"Can I ask you something, pet?"   
  
"No."   
  
//Stupid bint.//  
  
God knows the world would end if he ever called her 'friend'.   
  
He asked anyway: "Why Soldierboy?" As though he had never asked before, cared before.  
  
'Are you jealous?' asked the wind. Spike snarled under his dead breath.   
  
What did she see in Riley? She saw broad shoulders, hazel eyes, someone who always spoke with an exclamation point, she saw corn husks and tan-yellow skin and nut brown hair and a big heart. She saw normality, which she knew was just a nice way of saying 'mediocrity', but she couldn't answer with that, because Spike would catch it. "I see a white picket fence, one of those big cars...what are they called..."   
  
"Station wagons?"   
  
"No...the ones that are like...*big*...SUVs. I see an SUV. He likes picnics..."   
  
She continued on for a bit, while he listened as though he cared. She rambled on about meadows with dandelions that would never die and turn to fuzz; a kitten that they'd name 'Fish', or something idiotic like that; and holding hands by the beach, playing in the water, in the sun - all the things that a normal girl is supposed to want. And Spike just listened, fighting the urge to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she crumbled into a thousand pieces at his feet, because maybe then she'd realize she *isn't* a normal girl, and that's why she is brilliant. He wants to show her it doesn't have to be so hard.  
  
And she forgets how beautiful dead dandelions are.  
  
'Maybe I should knock some bleedin' sense into her. But he fears if he breaks her he won't be able to put her back together.   
  
If he listens hard enough, though, he can hear her words. And if he listens hard enough, while she explains the majesty that is Riley Finn, he can tell that she's trying to make an argument against loving something dark again...or perhaps even loving him.   
  
"Well, he's an bleedin' idiot, if you ask me."   
  
"I didn't. You asked me."   
  
Oh, yeah.   
  
"What would you do with an SUV?"   
  
"I don't know. I figure I'd drive it. Y'know, like places." Ha ha. "Maybe the grocery store, or the mall..."   
  
She thinks that if she squints, she can see what she needs out of the corner of her eye. Blurry, but existent. Waiting. Waiting for her to discover what she's lacking in life. Sometimes she watches the shape for hours...the white-hot fog that dances with her cornea. And it's always white, a thick ivory color, like the moon. And she knows it can't be Riley, because Riley never wears white. Even his pajamas are brown and green, because he's built part military and part nature.   
  
"You don't even have a driver's license, Slayer. Or a job. And they say those bloody things cost an arm and a leg." He threw his cigarette down and stomped on it with his black boot. "You don't need an SUV."   
  
"Well, maybe I want one!" she snapped, trying to convince the one person she knew she couldn't fool.   
  
But the conversation ended there. And with that, patrol was over, and they began walking back towards Revello Drive, without even realizing it. It was an unspoken thing. Mostly they communicated without talking. He figured that's why they sucked at trying to make peaceful conversation. She figured that's why they made a good team...a good *fighting* team, good at killing things.   
  
He always walked her home. She thought it was gentlemanly, and she knew he didn't like being thought of that way.   
  
Spike wasn't a gentleman, Spike couldn't *be* a gentleman. //I'm a *demon*...a bad, un-useless, *evil* demon.//   
  
'Just keep telling yourself that, Spike,' said the wind, 'It's true if you believe it enough...want it badly enough.'   
  
And he did want it, because *god* it hurt. Being a leper, the village castaway - never truly bad, but never good enough to be good. The rest of the world was black and white... //and Buffy and her groupies and the whole bloody town and the whole bloody world// watched life through black and white eyes.   
  
And Spike - well, Spike was gray. He was the storm cloud during El Niño that farmers fear but can't avoid. He was the asphalt that people drove on and walked on, spit on and bled on. He was the skipping stone; a statue of some Confederate soldier that modern Americans hate; a flawless painting of a slave-driver.  
  
Sometimes he was a shadow or early-morning fog. Sometimes he was soot, dirt and ash, the earth. But mostly, he was air.   
  
And he always walked Buffy home...  
  
"'Night, Spike," she said, walking towards her front door, away from him.   
  
"Yeah..." he replied, his tone dripping with bitter juices and something that easily resembled self-pity. But for some reason, he didn't want things to end on a sour note. Not tonight. "'Til t'morrow, Buffy."   
  
She turned and smiled a soft smile, unsure of the intentions of his words.   
  
He liked her smile.   
  
...and he would always wait from across the street until the light in her bedroom flickered on, then off, and sometimes he wished he could be up there with her.  
  
He always walked back to his crypt by himself, avoiding the various, faceless demons who might want him dead or even just a good brawl, a few rounds with good ole' Spike. He was never really in the mood to fight after she left. Sometimes, though, he didn't mind a bottle of Tequila or even curling up next to Harmony's lifeless body for the night, because if he was lucky, he would dream in his stupor or sleep.   
  
Sometimes - rarely, but still - he dreamed of Dru, of her innocent fingers and deadly eyes, black like a raven's, contrasting against her pallid skin and carmine lips; her tongue, more mighty than the sky's sun. He would dream that she would come back home, not to take him away, but to stay. And she would use the cusp of her needlelike talons to dig that nasty chip out of his skull, so he could kill again, feel again. Fuck the pain - her fingers in his head were no worse than the holocaust that raged daily in his fists, his eyes. And together, they would kill the girl that unknowingly made him a ghost, the girl that constantly reminded him without words that he was not *just* a silhouette, but a harmless dark alley...that he was air, and she could walk right through him if she wanted.   
  
But usually, he dreamed of Buffy... and he wasn't killing her. In his dreams he was still air, but should would breathe him in, and he would no longer have to worry about getting close to her, because he would be *in* her. He would dream of her voice, that girlish voice that spewed girlish words; the voice he knew would never fully mature, be womanly or motherly, but that was beautiful, nonetheless. He would dream of her tiny golden hands with mauve-painted nails that could crush him like a gnat without so much as moving a chine. But her hands wouldn't be bashing his skull in; rather, they'd be tracing the rough curves of his cheeks and jaw, her fingers leaving behind thin tracks of incandescence, setting him on fire, making him feel alive.  
  
Tonight, he found his crypt cold and his bottle empty.   
  
Maybe he'd take a walk tomorrow, around noon. He could stop by her house, knock on the door, maybe even tell her goodbye; get some peaceful shut-eye on her back porch //where she cried that one night// where the sunlight streams freely...   
  
He could tell her what was wrong with him, lie and say that something *real* bad happened one night on patrol //Slayer, listen to me...a Kryal demon - y'know, those big yellow buggers with three arms - played some nasty mind trick on me, and I can't fix it...// and he was now disgustingly in love with her; or he could tell her the truth, how he loved her from the moment he saw her, the slight moment that came before the blood lust, the same moment that he remembered he was supposed to kill her.  
  
...Would she stop him? If he layed down on the dirt beneath her feet, and let the sun drink him in, while she watched from her doorway as the smoke would curl above his fingers and scalp, like he was one of those trick birthday candles that could never be blown out, would she protest? //His blue eyes found the grasshopper green grass..."I died for a pretty girl once, Slayer; I'll do it again."// The scent of frying hair and flesh, a scent not too unlike melting plastic, filling her nostrils and mouth... And he wondered: Would it be enough...  
  
*Was* he supposed to kill her? He couldn't remember.  
  
...Would she care? Grab him? Pull him out of the sun, into the shade?   
  
Or would she watch, too tired of making decisions to make one more?   
  
He didn't know, but he was curious. And he could admit to himself, since he was alone, that he was scared. But as undesirable as the idea of non-existence was, he was pretty sure that it would be better than this, because it *had* to be.   
  
Yeah, maybe he'd take a walk tomorrow. Could be fun. Couldn't be any worse than the informercial he was watching about beef jerky - the same informercial he watched every night, because he only got one station...  
  
Right?   
  
Probably not.   
  
--EL FIN-- 


End file.
